The Baltic Sea offers some very treacherous waters even under the best of circumstances. The price to pay for sailing the Baltic through the millenniums has been high, and traces of those costs are scattered over the bottom.
Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the first European to reach India by sea. The São Jorge was part of da Gama's fleet during his third expedition to India. If confirmed, this discovery would represent one of the earliest European shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean, offering tangible evidence of early Portuguese maritime exploration in East Africa.
The wreck, estimated to be 50 to 60 metres in length, was found on the western side of Kalpeni Island. Coral growth and corrosion suggest the ship has been submerged for several centuries. Artefacts such as a cannon and an anchor have been identified, indicating the vessel's military nature. Researchers suggest that the ship may have belonged to one of the European powers active in the region during that period—Britain, the Netherlands or Portugal.
Archaeologists have recently discovered two 500-year-old shipwrecks in the South China Sea. These findings provide a remarkable glimpse into China's vibrant maritime history during the Ming Dynasty. The discoveries showcase exquisite artefacts and offer evidence of the extensive trade networks that once connected China to the rest of Asia and beyond.
Workers at a quarry near Dungeness made the dramatic discovery of a rare Elizabethan-era shipwreck on the coast of Kent while dredging gravel for building materials out of a lake in April.
The location is now some 300 metres from the coast, but archaeologists believe that the site was once right on the coastline. The vessel could have been wrecked or abandoned on the former shoreline, and then gradually buried in sediment as time passed and the headland expanded.
The discoveries in the Baltic Sea are unprecedented and have revealed shipwrecks hundreds of years old. Two of them are with great certainty cargo vessels from the Netherlands, while the third and largest is supposed to be a Scandinavian vessel.
All three shipwrecks stand like ghost ships almost unscathed in total darkness on the seabed at a depth of approximately 150 meters and beyond the reach of modern fishing vessels.
In order to obtain the best footage, two Swedish photogrammetry experts Ingemar Lundgren and Fredrik Skorg from the company Ocean Discovery took part in the expedition. An underwater robot equipped with an advanced camera brought thousands of images to the surface and reproduces with great precision a virtual image of the wrecks as they actually appear.
The pictures are so detailed that you get the feeling of being able to walk around a ship that sank hundreds of years ago.
According to the archaeologists, despite the religious tensions in the area, the shipwreck demonstrates that commerce was still thriving since it carried products from all over the Mediterranean, including Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey, and the coast of North Africa.
It was around the time the largely Christian Byzantine Empire was in decline and had begun losing its grip on this eastern Mediterranean region while Islamic rule was extending its reach.
The survival of a vessel such as this is extremely rare, and there are no known wrecks of seagoing ships from the 11th to the 14th centuries in English waters. The discovery makes this the earliest English designated wreck site where hull remains can be seen, Bournemouth University writes.
The shipwreck was preserved due to unique environmental factors, according to maritime archaeologists now excavating and analyzing the site.
The shipwreck, which has been found to be about 375 years old, was found nearly 36 feet beneath the surface of the Trave River - a river in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which flows into the Baltic Sea at Travemünde. The ship was found during routine measurements of the river by the local waterway and shipping authority which detected an anomaly at the river bottom using a multibeam echosounder.
“The wreck is made from oak, cut between 1233 and 1240, so nearly 800 years ago,” said Staffan von Arbin, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg.
Last autumn, the University of Gothenburg conducted archaeological diving inspections along the coast of Bohuslän to find out more about known wrecks on the seafloor. It was during this work that the maritime archaeologists came upon the wreck outside of Fjällbacka, which has been given the name “Dyngökoggen.”
